My extended family gathered at St Elizabeth's church in Bootle last week to bury Norma Heron, beloved mother of Mary, Frankie, Elizabeth, Billie and Hayley. She was my aunt and I'd know her since I was a toddler on Derby Road in the mid-1960's.

I left my family home during the Eighties and  trained to be an English teacher. I'd spent much of my early adult life trying to come to terms with being from Liverpool - the accent, the class consciousness, the catholicism, the football (I was born an Evertonian) - yet returning to Bootle to bury Norma made me reconsider all of those old hang ups and see them for what they are: my roots and my culture. My father went to sea, my uncle went to New York, I went to university -we all left yet we all came back.

Maudlin and sentimental these thoughts may seem - Norma, Dad, Uncle Phil - have all passed on but their ghosts are still there roaming the streets, the pubs and houses of Bootle.

Watch this film and you might just see them.